C|e Ceniple ma t|e C|r0ne; 



OK, 



THE TRUE FOUNDATIONS 



A SERMON, 



PREACHED IN THE NORTH BROAD STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 



September 26th, 1861, 



REV. E. E. ADAMS 




PHILADELPHIA: 

H. C. PECK & THEODORE BLISS, 113 N. THIRD ST. 

CHAS. S. LUTHER, PRESBYTERIAN HOUSE, 1334 CHESTNUT ST. 

1861. 






yvw. F. youNO, tkivzzv., 52 north sixth strbet. 



Philadelphia, Sept. 27, 1861. 
Rev. E. E. Adams: 

Dear Sir : — The undersigned having, with much pleasure and profit, 
heard your sermon on our national fast day, and believing its publication 
will tend to promote a healthful public sentiment and pui'e patriotism, 
we respectfully ask a copy for publication. 
Respectfully yours, 

A. AVHILLDIN, 

JAMES C. SCOTT, 

GEO. SNOWDEN, 

WM. E. CAMP, 

HENRY DAVIS, 

H. J. DARLING. 

H. H. ELDRIDGE, 

THOMAS POTTER, 



WM. C. LOGAN, 
H. C. PECK, 
THOMAS CARSON, 
G. H. HAZLETON, 
W. H. ANDERSON, 
P. HERST, 
JOHN W. HEARS, 
JOHN SNYDER, Jr. 



Philadelphia, Oct. 14, 1861. 
Messrs. Alexander Whilldin, Wm. C. Logan, and others: 

Dear Sirs: — Against my own judgment this manuscript is yielded to 
your kind request. If I have any great support, next to the Divine pro- 
mise and favor, it is in the readiness of my people to encourage my poor 
labors for truth and godliness. 

Yours, affectionately, 

E. E. ADAMS. 



THE TEMPLE AND THE THROiNE. 



If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? — Psahu si o. 

This question was uttered in despair, but answered in 
hope. David had been chased like a hunted deer among 
the mountains of Judah. The bands of Saul pursued him 
to the cUffs, "which only the wild goats could scale." Some- 
times, for days together, he concealed himself and his few 
followers in a cave, sometimes in the humble dwellin2:s of 
friends, or in the court of a neighboring king. 

During the transition from one retreat to another — 
perhaps, at a period when he least feared his enemy, or 
was most exposed — his friends urged him to save his own 
life and theirs, by flight to the rocks and solitudes whicli 
had sheltered them before. They said to him — Flee as a 
bird to your mountain, for tJie wicked hend their how ; theij 
make ready their arroio upon the string, that they may pri- 
vily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations he de- 
stroyed, what can the righteous do ? There is nothing left 
to us but flight and concealment. The king is mad with 
envy, and ready to destroy us. Doeg has well nigh crushed 
the priesthood, and closed the doors of the temple. Prin- 
ciples, which ought to be the basis of all right rule and 
healthful legislation, are rejected. . The foundations of the 
kingdom are giving way. Let us fly while the hour lin- 
gers ; what else ca7i we do ? The reply is : In the Lord 
put I my trust. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's 
throne is in heaven. His eyes hehold, his eyelids try the chil- 



[ 6 ] 

dren of men. The Lord trieth the riyhteous, but the wicked, 
and Mm that loveth violence, his said hafeth. 

In this answer of David — king already in the purpose 
of Heaven — we see the advantage of having a heart edu- 
cated to behold God in all things; a heart that will not be 
swung from its anchorage in the holy principles by which 
the Supreme Ruler governs men and nations. All the 
omens of evil, all the dreadful experiences which he had, 
in his relations to Saul and to the kingdom of Judah, only 
deepened his confidence in the permanency of truth, and 
his persuasion that all the schemes and violence by which 
himself and his followers were beset, would^ in the end, be 
utterly futile. 

The rage of the enemy was fierce, for a season ; but it 
fell like a harmless meteor, that dashes itself to ashes and 
darkness in the depth of the wilderness. 

Herein is a lesson for ourselves, for the righteous in 
our land, when the stability of our Government and our 
nationality is threatened — waves dashing on us as from a 
sea of wrath, and our sins threatening to sink us into the 
abyss. 

In the thoughts which we lay before you to-day we shall 
state — 

I. What we regard as the foundations of true national 

BEING. 

It is not possible so thoroughly to analyze the compo- 
nents of any nation as to point out to what extent a single 
element prevails therein ; impossible to say, in all cases, 
which predominates in the origia and history of a republic 
or a kingdom. This is an interesting inquiry. But time 
will not now permit us to pursue it. Some nations par- 
take largely, in their early formation, of the philosophy 
which prevailed at the period of their birth. This element 
gives tone to laws, to social relations, to institutions, to the 
genius of the people. 



[ ' ] 

Men and their political constitutions are, in most coun- 
tries, under the moulding influence of physical causes. Ex- 
tent of territory, climate, the nature of the soil, coasts, 
mineral wealth, harbors, rivers, remoteness from or prox- 
imity to other nations — these contribute largely to the form- 
ing of national character. 

Some nations derive their prevailing tone from the poli- 
tical and religious convictiorfs of their founders. 

Colonies are formed, and ultimately grow into independ- 
ent nations under the stimulus of commerce — as it was in 
the Euxine, in the age of Grecian supremacy, and with the 
Spaniards in America. 

Sometimes a commonwealth is the result of priestcraft, 
or kingcraft, impelling thoughtful Christian minds to accept 
of exile in a region where they shall be called to struggle 
only with the forces of nature in planting the germ and 
guarding the growth of a new nationality. In such instances 
antagonisms, by which the older countr}- becomes unconge- 
nial to them, will suggest an opposite sentiment and policy 
in the new. 

We believe that in our commonwealth most or all of 
these elements appeared at the outset. When our fathers 
took on them the work of forming this nation, they were 
actuated by broad views of libertj', by a large apprehension 
of the future. They endeavored to gather from the models 
of the past the best elements of each, to form an eclectic — 
a harmonious conservatism, but progressive republic. They 
had learned in Britain the worth and power of some prin- 
ciples, religious and governmental. They understood the 
value of education, of liberty, of commerce, and the arts of 
peace. They found everything liere, in physical causes, to 
stimulate industry, to enlarge the mind, and to promise a 
theatre of noble development. They aspired after self- 
government, and hoped to realize for ages to come, in the 
thrift and happiness of this broad land, more than Grecian 



[ 8 ] 

republics promised, more than the British constitution gave. 
Dreading the power of an aristocracy and the abuses of 
royalty, they thought only of a representative government 
for these United States. Having seen and felt the evil of 
a church establishment as it had existed in Europe, tend- 
ing as it did to persecution, encouraging distinctions inju- 
rious and unjust, becoming an instrument of political am- 
bition, and a theatre for the abtion and support of those of 
the gentry and nobility who were unequal to the demands 
of statesmanship, and too idle for the stern defences of the 
realm, they proclaimed liberty of religious belief and wor- 
ship, leaving the people to their own choice of forms and 
sects, and protecting them in their religious assemblies, as 
they would protect men in the exercise of any other consti- 
tutional privilege. 

Indeed, so far did their fears of priestcraft and of a state 
religion carry them, that, to the regret of thoughtful and 
godly men in these times, the name of God has not a place 
in our Constitution. 

We find, in the origin of nations, some influences ope- 
rating specially on the people, diffusing themselves through- 
out the commonwealth; while others are taken up silently, 
and without much further action, into the written forms, 
into the constitution which they adopt. We see the latter 
result in our own history. The virus of Atheism, which 
was imported hither previous to and during our revolution, 
did not break into prevalent disease among the people, but 
it did infect many leading minds of that day, operating, 
through them, to keep out of our magna diarta the 
recognition of God. And now, although irreligion is actu- 
ally less a characteristic among us than it is among other 
nations, it f<een(s otherwise to those abroad, who look in 
vain to our political forms for tokens of religious convic- 
tion and dependence. 

We suspect a government of hypocrisy, which stamps a 



[ 9 ] 

gratia Dei not only on its currency, but on its crimes. 
We call it blasphemy when a ruler fills his proclamations 
with devout exhortation and pious phrase, while his pri- 
vate and his public life is such that all know him to be a 
knave. 

It is monstrous for a rebel population to appeal to God 
for aid ; to put on the semblance of justice, in order to hide 
their oppression ; to assume the majestic forms of law, that 
they may the better conceal their lawlessness. But the 
appearance of national humiliation is sometimes followed 
with tokens of the divine favor; and the verbal acknow- 
ledgment of God, in the constitution of a state, as supreme 
in power and glory, is an honor rendered by reason, if not 
by the heart, to the prerogatives of Jehovah. 

We therefore intensely desire that God might be acknow- 
ledged in the Constitution of the United States. That the 
temple of national existence — so fair, so sublhne, so full of 
varied excellence, operating so benignly on the growth 
and prosperity of the people, commanding so largely the 
fear and the admiration of older commonwealths — might 
be adorned by the name of God; might acknowledge the 
hand that is in all history, allotting to man his habitation, 
and meting out the bounds of empires. 

From this, as a basis of departure, might we go on 
through the long and splendid line of virtues which would 
spring from that central glory like the mid-day beams. 
From this as the corner-stone, in which all the huildirHj is 
fitly framed together, might rise a nationality sublime as 
the apocalyptic city, in which all the precious materials of 
the universe are found, towering high, stretching its base 
abroad; so great, so opulent, so pure as to become God's 
dwelling-place, the Lord God and the Lamb being its tem- 
ple and its sun. 

There are many things in the life of commonwealths 
which we are accustomed, and justly, to regard as indis- 



L 10 ] 

pensable; such as commerce, and agriculture, and manu- 
factures; such as wealth, and learning, and armies. These 
are, indeed, great controlling powers among men; and we 
would deem that nation weak, in these times, which could 
not claim them all. But these are only the superstructure 
of a people. Where all exist a nation may become demo- 
ralized, corrupt, feeble, and plunge to ruin, even with the 
greater speed for the weight of the engines which give it 
momentum. It is possible for a commonwealth to live 
without these qualities, at least for a season. It may have 
them in ideal. It may create them. An ideal is often a 
power. It has a birth into the actual. A people may even 
become effete and demented by opulence. It may wax 
fai^-lilce Jeshurun, and klclc, and fall a victim to its pros- 
perity; becoming, like a gouty gourmand, plethoric and 
apoplectic, to sink into imbecility and decay suddenly, and 
be as a dream ivhen one awaketh, like Rome, and Babylon, 
and Tyre. 

England lived without commerce during two reigns. 
Her ships were rotting in her harbors, and her seamen 
sought employment in Holland, while the Dutch had the 
carrying trade of the world. But England had the old 
Saxon faith and vitality, and she created a navy and a 
commerce, and drove Holland from her sea dominions. 
Venice lived without Agriculture of her own, through her 
commercial interchanges. Russia grew strong without 
manufactures, by her farms, and mines, and internal trade. 
On the other hand, commerce did not save Holland; its 
very riches invited plunder. Agriculture did not save 
Egypt. Manufacture, and art, and learning, did not rescue 
India from the hand of Britain, Italy from the Vandal 
scourge of the north-men, nor Greece from a living tomb. 
And it is not commerce, nor agriculture, nor mechanism, 
nor all together — much as they may furnish supplies for the 
government and ngencies for the crushing of rebellion — 



[ 11 ] 

much as they may stimulate the intellect into needful pre- 
paration for the wise and safe management of affairs — it is 
not these that shall be our rock, our foundation, in this 
hour of peril. 

Indeed these powers, which, in the healthful periods of 
the national life, increase our wealth and prosperity, are 
found to be in conflict when the sky is dark above us. 
Rivalries which labor creates, and which, in return, aug- 
ment labor, while the machinery of state is whole and in 
healthy action, interfere with international harmony and 
domestic confidence, when, by a sudden shock, that action 
is impeded, that machinery impaired. At this moment 
wealth is set against wealth. The reign of cotton is dis- 
turbed; and, as its portly bulk shivers at the touch of 
war's grim hand, the tide of vital action ebbs from all the 
streams of enterprise in the north and west. The products 
of the prairies rot in stores and roll up in smoke from cot- 
tage hearths, while the money of the east is piled in 
banks or poured into the national treasury. Our opulence 
is less our salvation than our bane. It elates, and thus 
weakens us. It may help us nationally, by ruining us 
individually. It lies upon us in its wonted forms, but its 
worth is gone. Its pressure is the heavier for its empti- 
ness. We groan beneath it, " as Atlas groans beneath the 
world." 

Yet our exigency may create value, which shall help to 
feed the nation's strength. But we must first be lifted 
from our moral prostration. We must have a better thought, 
a higher life. The soul of the country must be touched by 
the hand of God. Our science, our industry, our learning, 
our matchless skill and invention, our grand institutions 
for the culture of mind, our boundless power of vitality and 
endurance, even our religious institutions, as mere fads, are 
not able to meet the exigency upon which we have fallen. 
We need not some applied force to put the great interest of 



[ 12 ] 

the moment through — to overcome resistances, and demon- 
strate the life, which, notwithstanding the clogs, and cor- 
rosion, and twisting of joints and levers, remains in the 
panting, jerking machine. But we need a moral element, 
that shall diffuse itself like oil throughout the whole, to 
remove the rust of prejudice — to ease the friction of selfish 
purpose and conflicting interests, and give free motion to 
the wheels and axles of public life. Or, do we need a con- 
vulsion? — the windows of heaven opening above us, the 
fountains of the great deep breaking up, and bolt after 
bolt, leaping from the quiver of God, crushing our institu- 
tions, breaking down our towering pride, and filling with 
black ruins all the channels of our activity! We cer- 
tainly do need to ascertain the true foundations of na- 
tional character; and, if we have them not, to retrace 
our steps and begin anew with those elements and forces 
which ensure complete development and permanent life. 
We therefore reply to the inquiry, what constitutes the 
adequate foundations of a state? 

(1.) A sincere recognition of God. 

We would have this both in the Constitution and in the 
minds of the people. What will so effectually guard men 
against vice as a full belief in the personality and presence 
of God? What can so restrain the sinful motions of th(j 
soul as the serious conviction that we are ever observed l)y 
infinite holiness ? — that the Great Father cares for us ? — 
that omnipotence upholds, and perfect wisdom guides us? — 
that the omniscience which, like "a torrent of lightning," 
leaps through eternity, lights up a clear day in our spirits, 
laying bare all their baseness and deformity? To this 
great truth the Ruler of all first directed the thoughts of 
his people, in the olden time. The law was for the nation. 
It was to bind the whole population, through its power 
over individual mind, to the source of their life, to the 
author of their blessings. All officers in the common- 



[ 13 ] 

wealth, whether judges, or prophets, or priests, or captains, 
or kings, were only the visible instruments of the Divine 
power and authority. God is in all history as the supreme 
governor of kingdoms and of men. All the nations are 
made to work out his counsels. All statesmanship, all 
wealth, power, national laws, relations and achievements, 
are only so many elements of the mighty action of God. 
Nations have prospered, and overcome resistances and hos- 
tilities, by their trust in God, by their acknowledgment of 
his reign. 

Oh that we could see God in our Constitution, in our 
national counsels, in our literature, in our laws, in our 
society ! That we could find him as a familiar presence 
in every assembly of men, giving awe, and majesty, and 
hope, and light, to all thoughts and all achievements ! 

(2.) Then the foundations of national security are not 
adequate, unless they have the word or god in them. 

By this I mean that they should be according to the 
Bible in their aim and principles. That the national mind 
be saturated, so to speak, with the truths of revelation. 
That these truths be believed — be viewed as essential to 
true national character. That the Bible be the educator 
of the conscience and heart of the people; imparting its 
great ideas of God, and providence, and government; its 
laws; its purity; its high spiritual motives; its lessons of 
duty in the family, in citizenship; its examples of patriot- 
ism and piety; its glorious history and song; its sublime 
moralities and hopes; its divine models of living and of 
faith. 

There have been times in the world's life when men of 
station understood the value of the Bible, as containing the 
best code of laws — as having vitality for the nation, as well 
as for the soul. Robert, King of Sicily, said : " The holy 
BOOKS are dearer to me than my kingdom !" 

While Henry of Navarre wished that the meanest of his 



[ 14 ] 

subjects might have a fowl for his Sunday dinner, and 
Louis XIV. desired that the time might come when a beg- 
gar could not be found in his realm, (and these were gene- 
rous wishes,) George III. longed for the day when not one 
of his subjects should be without the Bible! This wish 
might almost redeem him from the imputation of idiocy. 

(3.) Another essential in the foundations of national life 
is the acknowledgment of Christ as the rightful king. 

If there is any truth in the word of God, Jesus Christ is 
above all principalities and powers. Aside from his medi- 
ation and vicarious sacrifice, he is actually a king; — The 
King of Kings; and Lord of Lords. On his head are 
many crowns. He has a dominion now. He governs 
the world now, and angels and demons. All kingdoms 
are only the scaffolding around his throne. They have no 
meaning but as they are connected with his everlasting 
dominion. He is not yet revealed in his royal power and 
glory; but all history points toward his revelation, and the 
" Word" declares it to be at hand. We lose sight of this 
great truth. Nations do not acknowledge it. They there- 
fore look for permanency, when it is a law of their being 
that they rise, and flourish, and decay, for the very pur- 
pose of preparing man for the final, unchanging reign of 
Messiah. 

It becomes us, therefore, in our national capacity as well 
as personally, to recognise his rightful place. We are com- 
manded to honor the Son even as ice horior the Father. 
Christ is now, in reference to this world, as David was in 
Judah, after he had been anointed king, but before he 
ascended the throne in the sight of the people; and just 
as all things under the government of Saul were moving 
and breaking up, preparatory to their final disappearance, 
and the visible succession of the new anointed, so are all 
the kingdoms and nations now on earth shaken on their 
foundations, that the gates of universal empire may be 



[ 15 ] 

lifted for the King of glory, and that the things which can- 
not he shaken — the faith of true citizens, the hopes of sal- 
vation, the love of pious souls, the principles of godliness, 
justice and mercy — may remain. 

They that honor Christ he will honor; "for unto him and 
to his saints is given the kingdom, and the greatness of the 
kingdom, under the whole heaven." 

(4.) After these, come into the foundations of a living 
nationality all the virtues which adorn, and consolidate, 
and glorify a state. There must be mutual love and for- 
bearance among the citizens. There must be justice — 
the giving to every man what rightfully belongs to him, 
whether it be personal liberty, the earnings of his hands, or 
the purchase of his money; his right to speak, to go about 
unrestrained among men; his right of trial by jury; his 
right to his home; to the cultivation of his mind and heart; 
to his own views of religious doctrine; to worship God ac- 
cording to his own conscience; and to express, by vote or 
by voice, his political ideas. There must be temperance, 
for the spread of dissipation and inebriety just so far im- 
poses a burden on orderly and laboring men, and weakens 
the intellect, the conscience and the sinews of a people. 
There should be purity of speech and life; for impure 
words and manners are contagious; they work a subtle 
and deadly poison into the youth of the land, and thus 
destroy a nation's vitalitj', so that its blossom shall go up 
as dust. There should be truth, without which there is 
no bond between man and man, no security for law. Let 
falsehood enter one department of national life, it is likely 
soon to pervade the whole — to infect the family, the courts 
of justice, the halls of legislation; to run through the diplo- 
macy and the literature of a people, and bring the whole 
nation, at last, to a condition from which all confidence 
departs, in which character has no defence, and the realm 
becomes an enormous, unsightly rottenness, and intolerable 
odor of corruption and lies ! 



[ 16 ] 

There should be honesty, truth acted and lived, that 
men may see its glory and feel its blessing. There must 
be industry growing out of all these elements of life and 
promise; industry encouraged by truth, by mutual confi- 
dences, by integrity, by healthful interchange of products, 
by laws rightly balancing, by special protection in one 
point, greater natural resources in another, so that labor 
may stretch its arms around the bounties of nature, and, 
by its magic action, mould them into forms of utility, of 
comfort and of beauty. 

There must be patriotism; not the bluster, and swell, 
and blare of empty politicians — whose professions are loud 
in proportion to the hollo wness of their hearts, whose 
shouts for liberty are the cries of a lean pocket, or of a 
greedy hunger for praise — but the love of a child to his 
parent, the tender household affection expanded into love 
of country, awaking courage, nerving the arm, pouring out 
treasure, breathing prayer, losing itself in sacrifice. 

Now it cannot, with truth, be denied that these inilu- 
ences and virtues have existed in our country, from its 
birth onward, to a degree almost unknown in other lands ; 
and that even now there is a large amount of such power 
among us. Although Christianity is not named in our 
Constitution, nor boldly defended by our rulers, it has ever 
been cherished among the })eople. It has revealed its spi- 
rit and power in the abundance of religious books, journals 
and institutions in our land; in the amount of money given 
for the diffusion of truth, for the support of worship; in the 
many thousand learned, laborious and devout ministers of 
Christ, whose influence is felt and cherished; in the exist- 
ence of the Bible in all our dwellings and places of public 
resort; in its recognition by courts of justice and the press; 
in the fact that the laws exempt the Sabbath from the obli- 
gations of trade; and also in the general tone of our rulers 
and commanders, and the diffusion throughout our army of 
so large a force of Christian soldiers and oflicers. So that 



[ I- ] 

it cannot with truth be said that we are an infidel or an 
atheistic nation, in contrast with any other repubUc or any 
kingdom upon earth. 

Yet we have an overwhelming account to give, as a peo- 
ple. We are more guilty than those nations which have 
not been blest by such an origin, not upheld by the tenderest 
care of God, nor educated by the best models of patriot- 
ism, public virtue and religion. He Itath not dealt so with 
any nation; and it may be truly added, as for his judg- 
ments^ they have not known them. 

But now the Arbiter of nations is dealing with us in a 
different manner. His judgments are descending heavily 
on all our interests; the fountains of national prosperity 
are becoming dry; all our institutions suffer; the wise man 
wanders in darkness and doubt; the helm trembles amid 
conflicting waves, and the ship, in which a freight so pre- 
cious as the hopes and lives of thirty millions are embarked, 
gives signs of coming ruin ! There is a cause, not merely 
in the purpose of Providence, but in the character and con- 
duct of our population; in the absence of conditions on 
which the certainty of national permanence and union 
rests. 

11. We come naturall}-, therefore, to the question, — 
When may it be said that the foundations of national life 
and security are destroyed^ 

We have only to answer, — when the principles already 
indicated are absent from the character of the people. In 
our nation the people constitute the government. How much 
soever, therefore, may be wanting in our written forms — 
whatever judgments may "come upon us, if any, on account 
of an original neglect in the framing of our constitution — 
that is a matter of the past ; we cannot now pause to offer 
a remedy. The evil is upon us. Causes among the actu- 
alities of our life, and which, as individuals, we can con- 
template and remove, demand our notice now. 
2 



[ 18 ] 

It is not possible that truth, and justice, and patriotism, 
and true love and virtue, be in themselves destroyed. 
Whatever of these, therefore, are found in our laws, in our 
compacts, in our dealings with each other, in our schools, 
in our worship, in our character, they will live. They may 
not always animate our breasts; they may not shed un^- 
ceasing glory on our Government; they may not be bonds 
of perpetual union among our states; but they shall not 
die. They will take up their abode in other forms of life — 
in other minds, other nationalities. They will repose in 
the thought and holiness of God. But the foundations 
may be destroyed, notwithstanding. You may separate 
from one another the stones that uphold a mansion.- De- 
struction is disintegration, separating part from part — de- 
stroying coherency and relations, though the materials 
shall remain. If, then, justice be allowed to retire from 
our counsels; if patriotism desert the breasts of the people ; 
if insubordination reign in our towns; if theft and false- 
hood predominate in our departments of state; if avarice 
urge men to dishonesty and oppression; if idleness eat 
out the youthful life of the community; if ambition ride 
to power over the hopes, and peace, and rights, and lives 
of the ignorant, the poor, the enslaved; if hrihery hold in 
its feverish hand the price of national liberty; if the just, 
and conscientious, and retiring, and pure in the land are 
crowded from the places of trust; if, through fear, and a 
demoralized conscience, and the love of gain, respectable 
men are ready to bow before the Moloch of a crushing sys- 
tem, and cast liberty, honor, patriotism, humanity and reli- 
gion into the flaming Gehenna of sin, then I pronounce the 
foundations to be destroyed. It is patent to every observer 
that, from Maine to Georgia, from the farthest promontoiy 
of the Atlantic to the most distant line of our civilization 
westward, every precept of the decalogue is violated by the 
people of this Christian land ! Everywhere men are haters 



[ 19 ] 

of God and of one another. They dash against each other 
like ships in a storm, rendering every man's evil all mens 
greater evil. Everywhere the Sabbath is profaned; chil- 
dren disobey and dishonor their parents; theft, adultery, 
and murder prey on the property, the virtue and the life 
of mortals; covetousness, intemperance and cruelty weave 
a triple crown for cursed brows; an evil spell has seized on 
the channels of information, and woven over the land the 
perplexing, blinding fibres of deception and lies. False- 
hood is the stimulant of society, and men love the delu- 
sion. Reality, marvellous as it is in our day, is too tame 
for the excited mind. Reporters must create battles, and 
captures, and catastrophes, and murders, to satisfy the 
world's greed for horrors. 

It is not easy to designate the remote causes of our pre- 
sent dreadful conflict. Some things are occasions, which 
are not the sources of evil. AVe shall not go into this ques- 
tion. We shall state what we deem to be the grand and 
fatal agencies that are disintegrating our national founda- 
tions, and causing the column of liberty and of constitu- 
tional government to lean toward the precipice down which 
so many less worthy structures have been plunged. 

Avarice is undoubtedly one of these agencies. God has 
said, tJie love of money is the root of all evil. They that 
urill he rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many 
foolish and hurtful lusts, ichich drown men in destructioti 
and perdition. This applies to a whole people. And 
the truth is verified in the commercial upheavings and 
burials of the times. 

Avarice destroys tenderness of heart and nobleness of 
purpose. It leads inevitably to fraud and injustice — to 
falsehood, to discontent, to envy and pride. It wastes the 
joy of family life. It is an idolatry that rules its victim, 
and drives, by its fiendish occupancy, every lawful claim- 
ant of love, duty, and devotion, from the heart. Men 



[ 20 ] 

will give up their wives and children, their country and 
their God, for thirty pieces of silver! This has been a 
power for evil in our nation, and it is so still. It revels on 
the widow's mite and the orphan's pittance. It wrings the 
sweat from the poor man's brow. It wears to the quick 
the palm of honest labor. It riots in the national, the 
state and the city treasuries of our land. It violates 
solemn contracts, buys up the conscience of the trades- 
man, silences the rebukes of the pulpit, sets a price on the 
brow of the senator, and strips the suffering soldier to fur- 
nish the contractor with the means of inebriety and lust. 
It daubs the miniature of Judas on the " Temple of Li- 
berty," and on the walls of the sanctuary of God ! Then 
it excuses its infamj^ on the ground of necessity, or main- 
tains its power by motives of indulgence and by gilding 
the path to political place. 

Ambition is another of the agencies which are likely, 
unless God prevent, to hasten the downfall of our republic. 
Ambition, like avarice, brooks no rival. It will sacrifice 
the most tender ties, the most solemn obligations. Alex- 
ander grasped the world, then cried for another! Julius 
Caesar cast a million of men into the fires of war, that he 
might reach the Roman throne! And the modern Caesar 
waded to empire through the blood of more than three 

MILLIONS ! 

When once the hunger of ambition fastens on the soul, 
its rage is insatiate. It would convert the world into a 
sepulchre, and drive God out of his universe! 

It is not mere intrigue for place. Not only does it go 
about for suffrage, holding you by the button, swelling into 
greatness in the caucus, and hanging about cabinets for an 
appointment, but it seeks power. It would ride over the 
prostrate people. It would make all men slaves. It would 
educate the nation to subserviency. It seeks to build up 
a privileged order. It is hostile to liberty — to a republic. 
It claims a native right to supremacy. 



[ 21 ] 

These two evil angels are working the destruction of our 
commonwealth. 

But we cannot overlook the system of slavery as a tre- 
mendous instrument of demoralization and ruin to our 
republic. 

We ask not now whether the holding of a fellow man in 
bondage must, m every case, he a sin. The servitude which 
God sanctioned among the Hebrews settles that question 
in the negative. The origin of that system in the laws of 
warfare and of debt — the fact that the Canaanites were 
reduced to bondage, as a punishment for their sins against 
Israel and against God — and also the meliorations by which 
the system ultimately became almost, if not quite extinct, 
rendered it an institution altogether different from Ameri- 
can slavery. And we cannot plead the application of the 
curse pronounced by the patriarch Noah on Canaan as 
authority for our system, for the force of that malediction 
may have been intended to exhaust itself on the Canaanites, 
and not to extend, for generations, to a race whose descent 
from Canaan is more than doubtful. 

The question is not whether the bondmen in our country 
are in a better condition, morally and intellectually, than 
they would have been but for slavery — better than that of 
the Negro in his native wilds. We may not attribute to 
an evil system the blessings which God, in his sovereignty, 
causes it to evolve. We experience a joyous relief when 
we see the hand of Providence working, through the sins 
and sorrows of men, happiness for his kingdom and glory 
for himself. Men may be voluntary perpetrators of oppres- 
sion and crime, while they are the blind agents of the di- 
vine purposes. 

The weighty and unmitigated evil of slavery consists in 
its influence on our national character and condition. That 
it increases our wealth we do not doubt. That it gives us 
power over the nations of Europe we do not deny. That 
it is, also, the source of our present weakness is equally 



[ 22 ] 

evident. It exalts a class. It depreciates labor. It exacts 
privilege. It claims political control. It educates us to 
despise true manhood. It renders society barbarous. It 
deprives men of tenderness and honor. It pampers pride 
and the love of power. It gives irresponsible authority 
the most dangerous of all endowments. It subjects virtue, 
sacred ties, family, marriage, and the soul, to brutal pas- 
sion. It promotes illegal amalgamations, and forms a com- 
raunit}^ of tyrants and libertines. This is American slavery. 
This is what our legislation has protected, and what the 
press has sustained and the pulpit feared to denounce. This 
has formed our politicians, and controlled our government, 
and directed our commerce, and poisoned our social life, 
and damned our national glory ! 

Yes, verily, avarice and love of power, both North and 
South, drawing to their aid the commercial and political 
influence of the world — intrenching themselves in slavery, 
as a form the most convenient and mighty, as the medium 
of power — have led this great and blessed land to the brink 
of the precipice. Avarice, grasping at all wealth, and flat- 
tering the hopes of its wretched votaries with visions of 
splendor, luxury and ease. Arnhition struggling for place 
and power, and trampling on truth, honesty, purity and 
law; offering its base minions the spoils of conquest. 
Slavery, the expression and embodiment of the two, the 
black' chariot in which they ride to dominion; these, with 
the passions and sins that cling like parasites to greater 
crimes, are the causes of our trials and our sorrows. It is 
for these that God is holding the United States over the 
gulf, down which, if we look, are seen the fallen kingdoms, 
empires and republics of the past, turning their sad eyes 
upward and saying. Art thou heccme HJce unto us? There, 
by one yet unbroken chord of love does God hold us, swing- 
ing over the abyss! and if we do not repent, and cling to 
his arm, he will let us drop! 

III. We come now to answer the question, What can ^ye 



[ 23 ] 

do in this great crisis? If the foundations be destroyed, 
what can the righteous do? 

We are not to apply the term "righteous" to ourselves, 
in its absolute sense; but rather with the feehng that, 
although in purpose and desire, regarding the great ques- 
tions of the time, we are for the right — for justice, and 
freedom and godliness — we do still deserve chastisement, 
do still need to humble ourselves penitently before God ; 
not only on our own behalf, but on account of our whole 
population. It is for the church, and for Christians, as 
Daniel did, to confess national, as well as individual sins, 

(1.) The lord is in his holy temple. This is a part of 
the reply of David to his agitated and faithless friends. It 
indicates a portion of our duty; namely, that ice return to 
God in the church. We need to know that God is among 
his people; to feel our want of godliness; to warn one 
another against the avarice, ambition and oppression which 
God hates, and for which he visits nations; and then to 
urge the world to seek God. If there ever was, since the 
days of Israel's glory, a people bound to the service of God, 
loe are that people. Our whole history, from its origin to 
this hour, stamps on us the obligations of a Christian na- 
tion. We had our birth in the spirit of Christian liberty. 
We have been held as a child in the hollow of God's hand. 
Every motive that should now urge us to sustain the war 
in which we are engaged against rebellion, treachery and 
plunder, is noble, philanthropic, religious. God requires 
that we pray, and fast, and humble ourselves, and keejy 
praying until the war is over, and the land emancipated, 
and the world learn a lesson of true freedom. The sacred- 
ness of the cause increases our obligation thus to pray, and 
to how in penitent sorrow before our abused Benefactor. 
We have trusted too much, and we are still trusting too 
much, in the justice of our cause — in our numbers, our dis- 
cipline, our wealth, our generals, our armies, our govern- 
ment. But, great as all these grounds of confidence are, 



[ 24 ] 

they cannot avail without God. "Put not your trust in 
man; put not your confidence \n xMnces." "Some trust in 
horses and some in chariots, but %m will remember the name 
of the Lord our God." " The Lord on high is mightier than 
the noise of many waters." To whom, then, shall we lo6k 
but unto him? — with the cry, "Turn us, God, and cause 
thy face to shine, and w-e shall be saved." 

He will hear this prayer, if, with bleeding hearts, and 
streaming eyes, and self-rebuke, and the spirit of forgive- 
ness, we seek to be free from the avarice, the ambition, 
the oppression, the falsehood, pride, self-dependence, and 
practical irreligion, and coldness of heart, and had laws, 
and abuse of mercies, for which, as one solemn purpose, 
God has spread the death-cloud over our dear native 
land. 

He has a glorious purpose for the church in her present 
trials. It is to purify and prove her; to show who ought 
to be in the church; who ought to be cut off: who is will- 
ing to suffer for truth; who follows the great Captain. 

We have depended too much on the world. We have 
feared the world's frowns. We have bowed to its patron- 
age, and sought its smiles and its money. We must learn 
to live higher; as citizens of heaven — as subjects of the 
Great King. Say ye not a confederacy to all them, to ichom 
this people say a confederacy, neither fear ye their fear nor he 
afraid. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself, and let him he 
your fear, let him he your dread, and he shall he for a sanc- 
tuary. 

(2.) Another duty on our part, and on the part of our 
nation, is to aclin aided ye God in civil government. 

The Lord^'i throne is in heave?),. He reigns. Be sub- 
ject to the higher powers. The powers that he are ordained 
of God. Low views of government have long prevailed 
among us. Children are not governed, either at home or 
by the police. Wicked and dangerous men are not governed. 
Law is trampled on; magistrates are overawed. We have 



[ 25 ] 

yet to learn how to he governed, before we can govern others, 
before we can maintain government. 

We have to do with God. He is dealing with us now 
as a sinful nation, to punish us. We must bear our chas- 
tisement here, for nationalities do not exist in eternity. 

But we trust God has another purpose. That he is about 
to consolidate us we devoutly hope and pray. We cannot 
think he will destroy us in the freshness of our youth; we 
do not thus interpret history nor prophecy. W^e have not, 
as a people, persecuted the Jew. We have not driven the 
church of Christ into exile. We have not proclaimed our- 
selves an infidel nation. We have not abolished the Lord's 
day. We have not crushed religious worship. We have 
oppressed the African. We have, b}'- our example and by 
our laws, done the Indian wrong. We waged war with 
Mexico for the extension of slave power. We have boasted, 
and forgotten God. We have abused our distinguished pri- 
vileges; our riches, our liberties, our ancestral memories. 
We have rejected the authority of Christ, while we sought 
his favor with our lips. We have grieved, as Israel did, 
the Spirit of holiness and love, and in many ways honored 
a pagan literature and a lying press more than the eter- 
nal WORD. We have silently bowed to crime, and helped 
to forge the bonds which hold our brethren. And now 
God calls us to a reckoning. He demands that we give up 
our sins; that we take sides, openly and boldly, with truth 
and justice. If we do this, the present visitation will be 
for our health. The storm will purify the air, and cleanse 
the stagnant pools of public and private life. Give us W\- 
ao^ara, with its thunder and foam; not the Dead Sea still- 
ness. In these mighty throes of society and of institutions 
the «-ood is separated from the evil, and man borne upward 
toward the ideal glory. God has often interposed with 
iud-ments, not only to chastise nations, but to lift the race 
to a'nobler manhood. God grant this result for us. Either 
that we may become strong, united, free, peaceful and happy 
3 



[ 26 ] 

as a republic, or be fitted to surrender our nationality, that 
we may become a portion of that kingdom which the Lord 
of men and angels shall one day reveal to the universe ! 

Be this our motto: — God in the church, to purify, to 
vitalize, and to employ it'for his own glory. God in govern- 
ment, to secure justice, liberty, law, and true religion. Our 
God, everywhere and forever! He is now sajnng to us, as 
he did to Israel, Oh sivful naiw?i, a people laden ivith ini- 
qaitjj. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. 
Your country is desolate, and your cities are burned loith fire! 
Bring no more vain oblations. Wash you, make you cleayi ; 
put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease 
io do evil; learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the op- 
pressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the icidow. Come 
now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though 
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be 
willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. 
But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the 
sword, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!" The 
sword is drawn in the land. It is the sword of God. ''The 
wicked is thy sword," said the Psalmist. God wields it for 
the discipline of his people, and then breaks it and casts it 
away. On whom among us shall it fall? It will descend 
wherever pride lifts its daring brow. It will strike wherever 
covetousness, and lust of power prevail; wherever law is 
trampled on and God forgotten. But we hope the doom 
will be averted. Nineveh was spared when she repented, 
^odom, and Babylon, and Jerusalem had not fallen beneath 
Heaven's judgment, had they heeded the warning voice of 
God. Shall not we be won bj' mercy, and not wasted with 
wrath? "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness." 

Sin is a greater curse than national ruin. Sin — your sin 
and mine, the sin of the realm, heart sin, lip sin and lil'e 



27 

sin — these stir up the world's forces and God's forces against 
us. They are the heralds of destruction, and its train also. 
Our punishment reveals our sin, for God punishes in kind. 
Get rid of sin, and you have no more griefs. Get rid of sin, 
and nations shall not die. Here, to- day, will we bend in 
contrition, mourn over our sins, and forsake them. Over 
the sins of our households, of our church, of our city, of our 
country; over pride, and impiety, and avarice, and ambi- 
tion, and lust of power, and slavery, and falsehood, and all 
others that rise in dark array before the eye of conscience 
and of God! Here plead we and humble our souls, until 
the Lord shall lay his right hand upon us, and tell us that 
we are heard and pardoned! Then may we arise and go 
forth to replace the loosened foundations, to bring the people 
back to God, and the church also. Let our life be a bold, 
earnest, affectionate protest against sin ; shedding healthful 
influence on all the departments of our citizenship; advo- 
cating justice, government, purity, freedom, union, piety; 
voting for right men and measures; setting our faces sternly 
against pretence and political corruption; stirring the coun- 
try and the government, if needs be, to an earnest, vigor- 
ous, and unyielding patriotism and energy, against the most 
deadly and barbarous rebellion, — until the wounds of our 
bleeding republic shall be healed, and the waves of sorrow 
ebb away, and the channels of healthful action be reopened, 
and the nation's liberty be proclaimed, and the fallen em- 
pires in hades miss the accession of another nation to their 
shadowy realm, and the hostile living kingdoms be deprived 
of a jubilee over our lost birthright, and God appear more 
gloriously in history, not to destroy, but to save us! 

There is going on a mighty conflict in the world. The 
war which has been waged by the invisible powers sv^ells 
up into our view, and its waves dash on mortal shores. 
This conflict is for man, — for mind, — for souls, — for law, — 
for religion, — for the word of God, — for the vindication of 
Providence, — for the kingly claims of the Messiah, — and, 
v;ho shall not say it? — for the slj^ve! 



28 

Can we forget that, in the olden time, a nation was vi- 
sited with judgments in dreadful accumulation, because its 
avarice, and ambition, and pride, and love of power would 
not lift the yoke from Israel? Can we be deaf now to the 
sound that comes to us from the mystery of Providence — 
Let the people go? Is it not easy for God to put our 
government and our nation in the position which he 
has caused one of our generals to take, with regard to the 
question of human chattels? Is it not as easy for God to 
dispose oi four millions as it is of two thousand contrabands, 
when his time shall come? It is not our work. It is God's 
work. We had the opportunity, but did not dare improve 
it. God will not offer it again. We may now stand still, 
and gaze, and wonder, and see our wealth absorbed, but 
we can do no more; — nor can we stop the hand of God. 
Thanks for our impotency ! Who shall say that we may 
not behold another exodus of an exiled people going home, 
with spoils like those of Israel? Not through parted sea.s, 
but over the broad Atlantic, in the fleets of the nation, 
which shall have nothing else to do! — possibly in the navies 
of the world ! A people returning home to settle, with new 
thoughts and new powers, in their own ancestral wilder- 
ness; to make Africa a stupendous cotton field;* to change 
the commercial currents of the world; to give that land of 
the sun a history — a redemption 1 

Sublime possibility! Who would not say, Amen? Ame- 
rica and Africa free ! 

Then all hail! as they roll on from the future — 

The years that o'er each sister land 

Shall lift the country of our birth, 
And nurse her strength till she shall stand 

The pride and pattern of the eartli ; 
Till younger commonwealths, for aid, 

Shall cling about her ample robe, 
And from ber frown shall shrink afraid, 

The dark oppressors of the globe. 

'■■■ See Livingston, and African Repository. 

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